The leader of the secular Ahrar party, Ayad Jamal Aldin, has hit out at FIFA for suspending the Iraqi Football Association (IFA).

"I told you so", Declan Hill says in a press statement on the large probe into match-fixing leading to 17 arrests and confiscation of documents, cash and valuables after 50 raids in three European countries.

Reigning Asian champions Iraq have become the eleventh country in the last five years to be plunged into international isolation by FIFA for political interference but the world body is not seemingly intent on suspending Guinea for similar offences.

"Now that it's fall and the blind will be leading the blind until mid-June, there is a new assortment of cheerleading hockey books out there. Playing With Fire is the antithesis," Laura Robinson writes in her review of hockey player Theo Fleury's new book.